Anycom has released the BT-100 Bluetooth mouse without much fanfare, but it should. This is probably the best Bluetooth mouse I have used. It looks good, and it works extremely well. It’s ideal for laptop users and it will perform as well with desktop based computers.

The device is very small (28.5 X 48 X 100.5 mm or 1.12 x 1.88 x 3.397 inch) and very light (only 48 grams without the batteries). It feels silky smooth when touched and it looks very professional with its black body with silver detail. Even without a mouse pad it glides on desks and other surfaces. This includes fabric: I’ve used it on a sofa with my Tablet PC while watching TV.

The BT-100 has two buttons with nice tactile feedback, and a nice clear “click” when they are used. The mouse also has a scroll wheel with click action (third button).

The most important feature on this 800 dpi optical mouse is the 2x AAA Ni-Mh rechargeable batteries (included). A full charge promises up to 20 hours work, but even if the mouse is out of power, a clip-on USB charger allows the device to be used while charging is in progress. While the mouse is being charged through the USB port it is still connected via Bluetooth and usable.

The BTM-100 uses the standard HID profile which is currently implemented by a variety of Bluetooth software stacks and can be used up to 10m away from the computer. The list of compatible software includes:

Widcomm/Broadcom 1.4.2.10

IVT 1.4.8

ANYCOM/NSC 2.40

Microsoft XP Service Pack 2

Toshiba 2.02.03

Toshiba 3.00.31


Easy to use with Windows based computers

And of course let’s not forget of Mac OS X. Mac users will be happy to know that the BT-100 Bluetooth mouse is easily recognized and the Mac OS X Bluetooth software automatically connect and pair with the mouse. It will also provide right-click functionality for applications under this OS.


Even easier to use with Mac OS X based computers

Using it with either a Mac OS X or Windows PC machine is very easy: we have simply to turn the BT-100 on, press the Connect button and use the computer's Bluetooth software to search for new devices. Pairing is not required, although the Mac OS X Wizard will automatically try to create the pairing.

If you turn the mouse off and on again it will automatically reconnect to the last computer used, in a matter of seconds. In my tests it would reconnect within 1 or 2 seconds after on.


Actual size


Rechargeable batteries included

The Anycom BT-100 Bluetooth mouse is available in New Zealand from APT and elsewhere from Anycom.

Good
Works with standard HID profile
Comes with a carrying case
Windows and Mac OS X compatible
Very light
USB charging – no more flat batteries

Bad
Couldn’t find anything bad really